Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

ook “contains recipes from the boardinghouse killer for meals sheserved her tenants, who reportedly enjoyed her tamales, stews andsoups,” Bugabee said in an interview. She is also a serious force onthe Web, with appearances in a serial killer calendar and numerousother sites devoted to such macabre topics” (1).The paradigm shift is also explored through the Columbine HighSchool massacre in 1999 made shooters Dylan Klebold and EricHarris “heroes in the eyes of some disturbed teens” (Fox & Levin,2). They are heroes to those who do not fit in and wish they couldachieve what the Columbine shooters did. Fox and Levin write that“not only did they avenge the schoolyard bullies and nasty teachers,but their also famous for it, because they got their faces all over thenews. While not quite a moniker, ‘doing a Columbine’ has becomea code phrase for shooting up a school” (2). The paradigm shift isevident here because these shooters believed that they were the truevictims. They also had followers and sympathizers that also believedthey were the victims and all the bullies and teachers were the truemonsters. The question becomes if Dylan Klebold and Eric Harrisare victims, does that make their victims deserving to die? These boyswere and probably still are heroes to boys and girls that feel the sameway that they did. They have followers who see them as idols andthey have become celebrities in many disturbed people’s eyes.Famous serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer reached celebrity statuswhen in 1991 “he made People’s coveted list of the 100 mostintriguing people of the 20 th Century” (Fox & Levin, 2). Televisionis also a place for media to idolize the serial killer. The televisionprogram Dexter is about a serial murderer. The creator breaks thedichotomy between hero and monster when he says, “You may thinkthat he is doing good, but he is a monster. He’s killing becausehe is monster” (Lasswell 77). He further explains that “Dexter is acharacter who is a responsible citizen who channels his murderousimpulses strictly in the service of removing bad people from theemily mastrobattisto 77